by Davis Bunn
It was to her grandmother’s fearsome awareness that Shari responded. “This also isn’t Persia, Grandma.”
The old woman nodded in the manner of one who had expected nothing less. “You are young. You think you have reinvented the world. You think everything happens for the first time when it happens to you. Listen to me, my beloved daughter I never had, the one I hold most dear in this world. There is nothing new. Your young man, if he is as real as we both think he is, has two sides. The polish and the handsome looks and the glamour. And the shadow. Inside him, where his secret heart softly beats, he knows the power of the knife and the poison and the manacles deep in a hidden dungeon. And you, my dear, if you are to be his equal, must learn these lessons as well.”
Shari tried to pull away but could not. Her grandmother leaned closer still, her voice an ice razor. “The price, my dear. Remember the price.”
Their talk turned polite, two women of culture lunching in public. They spoke of the weather and films, both current and in the past. They spoke of people they knew. But in truth, neither of them moved very far from what her grandmother had said. It rested over the dining table like a shadowy benediction. When they were finished, the pungent tinge of sulfur followed Shari past the bowing waiter and back out into the California afternoon. Not even the brilliant LA sunshine could completely erase the veil that drifted between Shari’s eyes and the light.
They passed an astonishingly realistic cyclorama of a Hawaii beach and crashing surf. Shari paused because her grandmother did. She smiled a greeting to someone who spoke her name. When her grandmother was ready, they continued up a street from a defunct Western, past a soundstage filming a hit reality show, another doing scenes for a major cablevision gangster weekly. The respectful granddaughter hosting her matron and mentor. Nothing wrong. Nothing changed. All the world open before her.
The three parking spaces closest to the front entrance were restricted to the studio limos. Two drivers lolled and smoked on the grass nearby. Shari recognized one. “Paul, hi, are you busy?”
“Just holding up my bit of the sky, Ms. Khan. What’s up?”
“I was wondering if it was okay to ask you to take my grandmother home. I don’t think it’s really official, but I don’t know who to ask.”
“Hey, Ms. Khan, you ask me, you could have me pick up your dirty laundry and nobody’s gonna say a thing.”
The other driver agreed, “Your name’s on the roster, Ms. Khan. You say drive, we drive.”
“Sure thing. Where does your grandmother live?”
“Santa Monica Boulevard in Brentwood.”
“No problem. I’ll just go sign out. You ladies prefer to wait in the back, I could turn on the AC.”
“Grandma?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Paul. It’s so wonderful to see you gentlemen be so nice to my granddaughter. She appreciates it as much as I do.”
“I got to tell you, ma’am. Your daughter—”
“Granddaughter,” the other driver said.
“Hard to believe, a lady of your age has got a granddaughter. What I’m saying, though, it’s a pleasure to drive a real lady for a change.” He dumped his cigarette in the clay urn. “Back in a flash.”
“Such a nice gentleman,” her grandmother said, playing for the other driver.
Shari realized she still carried Jason’s envelope. “Excuse me.” She stepped away, slit it open, unfolded the paper, and screamed, “Who are they kidding?”
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“This is insane!” She crumpled the page with such force she felt her forehead knot. “I am going to kill them! Kill them stone dead!”
The second driver took a pair of steps away. “Glad it’s not me, whoever they are.”
But her grandmother’s response was merely to smile and say, “Do you know, I believe Jason Garrone has chosen wisely indeed.”
Sam Menzes angry was a fearsome sight.
“Are you sure about this?” he demanded.
“I trust my source,” Shari replied.
Derek Steen gave her that look, the one where he cocked his head slightly to one side and inspected her through tight lids. Wondering anew who she truly was.
But Shari could not focus on Steen. It would be like watching a cobra while an angry tiger paced and readied himself to pounce. Shari went on, “He had no other reason to give me the article than to help us out.”
The Hollywood Reporter article was written with genuine respect for the Shoestring Productions demo ad and snide humor over how Galaxy’s comments came back to bite them. The journalist’s tone made for snippy reading. The article described how, when it came time to tape an on-air story criticizing the Shoestring project, the so-called film expert had arrived for the show with Galaxy’s newest exec producer in tow, one Shari Khan, who according to one unnamed source did everything but tattoo the lines on the expert’s forehead. The article dripped with LA humor, bright and acidic.
Steen asked, “Was it that manager of Colin’s who fed you this article?”
Shari kept her focus on Menzes.
Sam Menzes tapped a gold Dupont pen on the article. “They haven’t called and requested a response?”
“I checked with PR before coming up,” Shari told him. “There’s been no call from anybody.”
“They’re laughing at me.” Sam Menzes looked like he had suffered a botched plastic surgery. His face had become drumtight and was blotted with pale coin-sized blemishes where the blood simply could not force its way through. “I will crush them.”
“Careful,” Steen muttered.
“I’ll give them careful.” His drumming increased in fury until he stabbed holes in the paper. “I’ll give them every reason in the world to be careful.”
Shari said, “I have an idea.”
The hand holding the pen froze. “Go on.”
“Actually, three. First, we take out a double-page ad for Iron Feather in Variety. We do it every day for two weeks.”
“A double tombstone would cost us a quarter mil,” Steen protested.
“That’s right,” Shari agreed. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the Hollywood Reporter’s competition.”
Menzes leaned back in his chair. “Do it.”
“Second,” Shari said, “we have no official response. Nothing at all from anyone in the studio. Derek issues a directive to that effect. Anyone in the snake pit or PR who is caught feeding anything to the press is sacked. Instead, we get someone in the unions to talk about this Shoestring Productions. About how the studio’s move to North Carolina and its nonunion attitude means a loss of decent-waged jobs. How this indie studio’s owners are laughing all the way to the bank. How they’re robbing the employees and feeding their own bank accounts. How this is a perfect example of why there are unions in the first place, to keep a balance between the owners and the people who really do the work.”
The two men were silent for a moment. Then Sam Menzes asked his lawyer, “Can we plant this to run tomorrow?”
“No problem.” Steen’s gaze did not leave Shari. “This is solid.”
Menzes asked, “What else?”
“We follow this up with another identical comment from the governor’s film commission. The commission agrees with the unions but goes back to the original point, that this Shoestring group is trying to parasite off our marketing efforts. They complain how this is a double whammy, stealing union jobs and stealing our marketing dollars. Both of these go to Variety. The Reporter will be clamoring by now for something. Let them get it from the competition.”
Sam was nodding now. “Pass the word to PR. The next few scoops all go to Variety and the LA Times.”
Shari knew they thought she was done. “Actually, that was just two different parts to the second tactic.”
She reveled in both men’s surprise. Steen asked, “There’s more?”
“That’s up to you.” Shari focused her attention on Derek. “I’m not sure you want to hear this.”
“As of this moment, Derek is no longer here,” Sam said. “Talk.”
Shari outlined her idea. When she was done, neither man spoke. It was Menzes who finally said, “I am shocked you would even suggest such a thing.”
“Shocked,” Steen repeated.
“If this had come from an experienced aide on the second floor, I’d have her fired on the spot.”
“Drop-kicked out of LA County.”
Shari replied carefully, “I am sorry for having brought it up.”
“You should be. It’s a scandalous idea. If anything like this ever happened, it would be a tragic loss to the film community.”
Derek scrawled something on his notepad. He slipped it across the table far enough for Shari to read, Talk to Leo . He withdrew the pad, tore off the page, and slipped it into his pocket.
“You can go now,” Sam said.
Leo Patillo’s office occupied the corner position directly below Menzes. The view was nothing special. But Shari walked over to have a look anyway, something she would never have dreamed of doing in the chairman’s office. Leo did not say anything. But the glitter to his dark eyes said he knew precisely what she was doing.
Shari saw another blank-faced limo pulling up to the studio’s front gates. Beyond that were six lanes of congealed traffic. To her left, a window washer was belted to a creaky cage. She asked the polished window, “Where are you from?”
“Philly. But the family’s from Torre Del Greco.”
She returned to her seat. “Italy, right?”
“Bay of Naples. Famous for carved coral and gangsters. The made guys, they’d go do their business, then have their pasta at restaurants on the slopes of Vesuvius and return to their villas overlooking Capri.” Leo gave her a humorless smile. “They had the game pretty well sewed up, according to my pop. Philly wasn’t much better, far as I could see.”
“So you migrated west.”
He waved at the view she had just given up. “Look at me now.”
“The power behind the throne.”
“Where it’s at.” He picked up a stiletto letter opener. “You don’t have to be there.”
“Yes I do.”
“I didn’t offer because I’m after stealing your glory.”
“I’m putting this into motion. I don’t hide behind you or anybody. I want them to see me, and I want to know who they are.”
Leo rewarded her with tight approval. “Then let’s do this thing.”
They took a cab to a biker bar across from the comedy club on Sunset. At midafternoon the place was tomblike and smelled of stale ashes and disinfectant. Shari had heard the same rumors as everybody else who tried to stay up on what was going down in LA. The bar was supposed to be the latest gathering point for the city’s methamphetamine trade. It was a natural fit. The place resembled a massive warehouse down to the concrete floor, industrial lighting, and raw steel pillars. The bar was a metal slab riveted to pillars of hubcaps. By midnight the street was lined with thousands of custom bikes and the music pounded passing cars with acid-rock fists. Bikers traveled from all over the nation, drawn by a place so potent and dangerous that cops would never dare make an arrest inside. It was called simply The Cave.
The three men who approached their table were as close to deadly as Shari ever cared to come. They were carved from the same piece of fleshy stone. Scraggly beards, muscles, gut, leather, boots, chains, tattoos, lumpish welts on their wrists and knuckles. Horrible smell.
One of them asked, “You Leo?”
“That depends,” he said, “on who sent you.”
“All I know is a man in a café across town said do this thing or don’t make another trade in this town.”
“Yeah, that sounds like our guy.” Leo made a grand wave, which opened his jacket and revealed the holstered gun and the minibadge given to all cops upon retirement. “Take a load off, why don’t you. Beer?”
If the biker saw the gun, he gave no sign. He used two fingers to flip a chair around. He straddled it and the other two stood behind him. “We won’t be here that long. Cops give me hives.”
“Know what you mean.” Leo indicated Shari with a jutting chin. “Lady’s in charge of the details.”
Three sets of reptilian eyes crawled over her. Shari reached into her pocket and came out with a slip of paper. “This is the address of a new movie studio. One that is operating strictly nonunion.”
The seated biker made no move for the paper. “This means something to me?”
“The guy who sent you,” Leo supplied, “the one who likes a twist of lemon peel in his espresso. He’s not happy about this.”
“Okay, so we got a problem.” The biker twisted his head around. “Wilmington.”
“As in, North Carolina.”
“Long way.”
“We need this done quick.”
“Sorry. I got business over here. Maybe next month.”
One of the bikers standing behind their spokesman reached for the sheet of paper. He put it to his nose and snorted. His eyes crawled over Shari a second time. “Nice.”
Shari ignored him. “Maybe we should take a little trip across town. Try the man’s method of taking coffee.”
The biker said, “Guess I could make a phone call. Cost you twenty.”
Twenty thousand was only half of what Leo had in the trunk of his car. But Shari replied, “The union man said nothing about payment.”
“I don’t know nothing about no unions, baby.” His yellow teeth were almost lost to the scraggly beard. “But you want me to make the call, you gotta invest the dime.”
The man standing behind him licked the page. This time Shari could not completely hide the shudder. “Ten now. Ten when it’s done. And only if it’s done by this time tomorrow.”
“You ain’t even told us what you want doing.”
“That should be clear enough even to you.” Shari was on her feet. “I want them gone.”
28
Liz was so deeply asleep she dreamed she answered the phone and slipped back to sleep, all without actually waking up.
The ringing stopped when the answering machine came on. Then it started again.
Liz finally woke up enough to fumble for the receiver. “What?”
“It’s Stanley, Liz.”
She moaned. “I didn’t leave the bank until after midnight. Can it wait?”
“I’m coming by with coffee. You need to get up or we’ll miss the plane.”
The words refused to connect. She rubbed her face. “Am I traveling today?”
“Liz, listen to me. Something’s happened. Brent needs us.”
That got her motor running. “What is it?”
“Get up and get ready. Bobby’s plane is landing in twenty minutes.”
Liz thought they made quite a nice crowd, considering they were gathered around a funeral pyre. Which it appeared to be, as far as the faces around her suggested. A pile of ashes and cremated dreams.
The former Angelini Studios had been built on land reclaimed from the Wilmington harbor. Carlo Angelini had migrated east after a massive fallout with his former Hollywood studio, vowing to never have anything to do with the production side of LA again. Angelini had made his mark with a series of midbudget gangster films, and almost made a go of his East Coast project. But six self-financed flops in a row had left him desperate for a face-saving measure and a ticket west. Bobby Dupree’s offer must have seemed like a gift from benevolent beings. Not God, of course, who Carlo Angelini had spent a lifetime scorning. But someone.
Bobby had related the news on the flight east. They had landed briefly and gathered up as many from the location shoot as the jet could hold. They stood at the studio site now, seventeen morose souls, Brent and Celia among them. They were joined by a fire chief and somebody from the sheriff’s department, along with the head of the state’s film office. Several hundred onlookers milled behind the fire cordon—locals, news people, former employees. Cold ashes and a damp sea breeze blew in their faces.
The fire chief said to Bobby, “There’s no question this was arson. The only question is who.”
Bobby said, “I got a call yesterday from some union joker, had a northern accent you could cut like smelly cheese. Said I oughta tuck my tail between my legs and scuttle back to hicksville.”
“Did you get a name?”
“Even better. I got the whole conversation on tape.” Bobby patted his pocket. “Brought it with me.”
“I’d like to run that by the feds,” the sheriff said.
“Fine with me.”
The state film director said, “The governor asked me to convey his personal guarantee that we will do everything in our power to help you rebuild.”
The unspoken question, whether Bobby actually intended to start over at all, hung in the air like oily smoke. “You tell the governor I’m much obliged,” Bobby said. “We could use all the help we can get.”
Liz saw the flicker of hope gleam in Brent’s gaze, though the man still looked hollowed. “You’re going ahead?”
Bobby looked at him, clearly astonished by the question. “What, you thought I’d let scum like that run me off?”
“Tell the truth, I didn’t know what to think.”
“Son, you don’t know me well.” Bobby jammed his hands deeper in his pockets. “I’m no quitter.”